


torrents

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Eadu is a Metaphor, Gen, Introspection, Night, Politcal Machinations, Pre-Rogue One, Trick or Treat: Trick, spooky atmosphere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-21 02:38:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12447930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: This was a hellhole and a dark, terrified corner of Orson’s heart knew it wasn’t right to be here. He couldn’t control this place. It wasn’t his and he couldn’t up and relocate here in the hopes of corralling the people here, not when there were people halfway across the galaxy—including Tarkin himself—that he had to corral first. Tarkin knew that.





	torrents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disgruntled_owl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disgruntled_owl/gifts).



Orson Krennic stood on the launch pad outside Eadu Flight Station, unimpressed and miserable. Rain drenched his uniform and trickled, cold and implacable, down the back of his neck to follow the curve of his spine. He shivered and blinked through the never-ending cascade of droplets and watched lightning strike the rocks in the distance while his crew readied his ship for departure. If only he could harness that power, he mused, offhand. Random and deadly, beautiful and raging in turns, it terrified some people and humbled others, just the combination that Orson might have found useful if only he could wrap his hands around it. It was the only light to illuminate the darkness of Eadu's seemingly ever-present nighttime.

Eadu, he thought, too, more disdainful than reverent. It had been his last choice on a list of excellent, well-researched options for the next phase of Project Celestial Power. Sure, it was isolated, but it was _too_ isolated, relied too much on shuttle pilots, risked all sorts of security leaks without immediate Imperial supervision. He’d spent months scouting good, secure locations to send Galen and his team to. And Tarkin, Wilhuff _fucking_ Tarkin, had swooped in at the last moment to suggest his own holding. This little shithole of a place that only resonated because he’d offered it to the Empire gratis and mentioned that it wouldn’t even require a full complement of troopers or ships to protect it. Bureaucracy was bureaucracy was bureaucracy and cheap beat security always. It was a tendency Orson had fought against his entire adult life.

And just like always, he fought against nonsense. Complete and utter garbage. The Death Star wasn’t a joke; it wasn’t a toy; it wasn’t something Tarkin could just sweep up into his own initiative just because he wanted to. It was something that required the utmost respect of all its participants and Orson, more than anyone else, respected it. He’d babied it through its genesis, encouraged every stage of its completion. Every bureaucratic step taken was taken by him. Every fight for funding went through his office first.

The Death Star was his. And this last, most important, piece was now more directly under Tarkin’s control than his own for no better reason than personal convenience.

He felt as though he stood on the sand, the ocean surf roiling around his feet, taking his world out from under him—and more than that, his career, the only thing that had ever mattered to him.

Scowling, he licked his lips, tasted Eadu’s downpour and found it metallic and bitter.

This was a hellhole and a dark, terrified corner of Orson’s heart knew it wasn’t right to be here. He couldn’t control this place. It wasn’t his and he couldn’t up and relocate here in the hopes of corralling the people here, not when there were people halfway across the galaxy—including Tarkin himself—that he had to corral first. Tarkin knew that.

Orson’s eyes narrowed, his thoughts turning as gray and dismal as this planet’s atrocious weather patterns.

He’d done it on purpose, the bastard. Tarkin wanted just this, like Orson wasn’t already pulled in too many different directions on a daily basis. He’d anticipated it, cultivated it, probably even gloried in it, celebrating behind Orson’s back whenever he managed to get one over on him while he was away doing the actual work of constructing the Death Star. That he still needed Tarkin’s approval only rankled more. Tarkin was a gatekeeper, pure and simple, one that Orson was forced to scrape and bow before at every turn.

 _Not for much longer_ , he thought, though it didn’t cheer him as much as it usually did to think that soon Tarkin wouldn’t be a factor. With Galen’s help, the Emperor would see what he was capable of.

His heart pounded, furious, in his chest. He’d done nothing but bleed and scramble and beg and fuss for the Empire in the hopes of making the galaxy safer and to secure his own place within it. He’d done the same, before, for the Republic, but look where that got him. This was his only choice. That he had to get through Tarkin first was a curse, a joke, a cruel, cruel twist the universe had thrown into his life.

What would he be now if he’d remained an architect alone, planning and executing projects that led to interesting, useful constructions that bettered the galaxy in less destructive ways? Would he be any less respected, or more? Would he have had to deal with anyone as insufferable as Tarkin? Could he have controlled his own life instead of allowing it to be sucked up in its entirety for a weapon that wouldn’t even belong to him in the end?

If nothing else, an architect wouldn’t have needed to come to Eadu to give his signature—a formality at best—affirming that this would be a perfectly acceptable option for further development on the project. He hated doing it, knowing what it meant and what he was signing away in the process. Orson willingly peddled lies to get everything he needed for his project, but this lie rankled the most.

“Sir,” one of his Death Troopers said, voice completely subsumed by the vocoder. Orson hadn’t even heard him come up behind him. What was one woman’s steps against the mighty fall of rain against the ground? “Ship is ready for departure.”

Orson swallowed around the lump of dread that threatened to form in his throat.

This was wrong. All wrong. But he didn’t know how to stop or change it.

“Very good,” he said, clipped, feigning a confidence he didn’t feel. “Let’s get back to civilization, shall we?”

The Death Trooper straightened, offering a brief salute. “Yes, sir.”

Putting thoughts of Eadu behind him, he made for the ship, annoyed anew at dripping water all over its glossy interior.

Somehow, someway, he thought this place would be the death of him.

He shuddered at the thought.


End file.
